Northern China belongs to areas that are rich in wind energy, and the wind power generation is growing rapidly in these regions; in addition, the installed capacity of wind energy is increasing year by year, and the proportion of the installed capacity of wind energy in the total installed capacity is also increasing year by year. However, the wind power has an anti-load characteristic, i.e., during the electrical load trough in the power grid at night, the wind power output is large, and during the electrical load peak in the power grid at daytime, the wind power output is small. Meanwhile, the difference between electrical load peak and electrical load trough is also expanding year by year, thus it is difficult to regulate the peak load.
Currently, the cities and towns in Northern China are still dependent on coal-fired boiler technology, which supplies the heat with high energy consumption and high pollution. Combined heat and power (CHP) is an efficient heating supply mode. However, the heat power plants in China operate in the way of ‘heat determines electricity’. In order to ensure heat supply, regulation ranges of the power output for many heat power plants are greatly limited, and the energy production cannot be reduced during the electrical load trough, thereby occupying the room of the wind generated electricity in the electrical grid, thus the wind power station has to limit its power output, which leads to phenomena of “fan suspending” in the areas that are rich in wind energy in Northern China.
Applying heat pump technology to recover exhaust waste heat of the combined heat and power (CHP) unit may further improve the heat supply efficiency of the combined heat and power (CHP), but it still cannot change the operating mode of ‘heat determines electricity’. The combined heat and power (CHP) may operate in the mode of ‘electricity determines heat’ by combining heat storage and the combined heat and power (CHP) unit through the heat storage stabilizing fluctuation of heat output, however, when in combination with the exhaust waste heat recovery technology in power plants, it still cannot ensure the stable recovery for the exhaust waste heat of the power plant.